Chapter 42
FRANZÖSISCHE STRASSE 35
Autumn 1873
“You’re a lucky man,” said Dr. Joseph Werner, finishing his examination.
The doctor was average in appearance: average height, average hair color, average weight. Paul had it on good authority, however, that the doctor was above average in medical ability, so Paul had decided to trust him. Therefore, for the purposes of this particular conversation, Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy would accept that he was, in fact, a lucky man.
“You may get dressed,” Dr. Werner said.
Paul didn’t like taking orders from those younger than he, especially in his own home. They were in the library, supposedly engaged in erudite conversation over coffee. The coffee service placed on the side table supported this ruse.
“After you’re dressed, we’ll talk.”
Decorously, Dr. Werner turned away and looked out the window, thus giving Paul a measure of privacy as he put on his shirt, tied his cravat, donned his jacket. If Paul had rung for his valet to assist him, the cause of such a disrobing and rerobing in the middle of the day would be known throughout the house, upsetting one and all.
When his brother lay dying, Paul had patted Felix’s forehead with a cloth soaked in vinegar. This was supposed to help him. Felix, that is. So much for medicine.
Nonetheless, one sought the opinion of medical doctors when symptoms occurred.
“Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy?” Dr. Werner said, a trace of impatience in his tone.
“Almost ready.”
Paul felt a boyish glee in making the doctor wait. He could well imagine what the doctor was going to say. Paul would be sixty-one in a few weeks. He had lived longer than his siblings, but, given the ache that cut through him now, part of him believed it still wasn’t long enough.
Above the mantelpiece was a portrait of his eldest daughter, Pauline. Dead at nineteen, suddenly, and no one was able to tell him how or why. In the portrait, she never grew old.
He would have been glad to die before her.
“May I assist you in any way?”
Poor Dr. Warner.
“No, thank you, Doctor. Just about finished.”
After they were properly resituated, Paul behind his massive desk, Dr. Werner in a low, hard-backed chair in front of it, Dr. Werner began his learned disquisition, proving that Paul wasn’t lucky at all, except in that his condition might have been worse than it was.
And so it began: the journey to the end. But first, an afternoon musicale, continuing the family tradition.
Paul left the study, Dr. Warner following, and went to the reception room. Albertine joined them. Guests arrived. Paul greeted each of them, considerate host that he strove to be. At a time determined by Albertine, he entered the adjoining music room. The guests took their seats.
Paul adjusted the tuning of his cello. He nodded to the pianist. He began to play: the Variations concertantes in D major, op. 17 (originally entitled the Andante con variazioni), by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Paul had been performing this piece for more than forty years. The piece had grown older as he did, and he’d found within it ever more subtlety and depth. Its twists and turns, its balanced interchange between cello and piano, these were part of him, part of the sweep of his life. A living link to his siblings, and to his parents. He could weep, from his love for them.
When he finished, the applause was more extended than Paul expected. Had he performed the piece with more emotion than usual, in light of the news he’d just received?
After taking a second bow, Paul retreated to the back of the room. Dr. Werner, a talented violist, joined three friends to perform Schubert’s Quartet in A Minor. Usually this piece affected Paul deeply, but today he couldn’t fully hear it. Dr. Werner’s diagnosis kept circling through his mind, all but shutting out Schubert’s transcendent music.
He needed to begin to put his affairs in order. Albertine’s future welfare, his children, leadership at the bank, the disposition of the many charitable organizations he supported . . . there was much to be done. And he had to decide what to do with Tante Levy’s cantata. Sara had died when she was ninety-three, almost twenty years ago. When he sat down to practice the cello, he often remembered her, and her encouragement.
His surviving children were too young to entrust with the cantata manuscript. They were adults, in their twenties, true enough, but possibly they’d always seem too young to him. Oh, they were fine-enough children, all four of them (they’d been five, with Pauline), even though they weren’t everything he might have wished. They weren’t musical. They weren’t literary. They weren’t scientific. Ernst was already at the bank and proving himself competent. Gotthold was giving every sign of planning to live off his inheritance for the next fifty or sixty years, but at least he was a gentleman. The girls would marry and take up their proper roles in society.
Such were his children. He wouldn’t trouble them with Sara’s artifact. What about Fanny’s son, Sebastian? Or Felix’s children, or Rebecka’s? They were all fine and upstanding, but none seemed suitable.
He needed to ponder this question.
The Schubert concluded. Soon their afternoon gathering was complete. Albertine gracefully organized the departures of their guests. Dr. Werner delayed his goodbyes. Paul sensed the doctor wanted a moment alone with him. Perhaps the doctor was feeling guilty.
“Dr. Werner,” Paul offered with as much exuberance as he could muster, as if to say, no hard feelings, we are both professionals, we give our opinions forthrightly: death, bankruptcy, whatever our professional experience has empowered us to determine. “You must visit us again soon.”
Paul walked with Dr. Werner along the balcony overlooking the central hall. What a beautiful house this was, the central hall with its paintings and tapestries, rendered brilliant from the sunlight pouring through the skylight . . . Paul saw his home with an abrupt clarity.
At the top of the stairs, they paused. They were alone. “I believe my wife is planning another gathering on Saturday afternoon. I hope you’ll be able to join us.”
“Thank you, Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. But I keep the Sabbath. I could join you on Saturday in the evening. If the party will continue into the evening.”
“You keep the Sabbath?”
Paul was surprised. He’d assumed the doctor was a nominal convert to Christianity, like himself. Paul had experienced a fraught entanglement with the two religions he didn’t practice: because of the anti-Jewish tirades of Richard Wagner and his followers, Felix had been denigrated in public perceptions. Although Felix was a baptized Christian, the Jew-haters had destroyed his legacy. Our Mozart had become the Jew Mendelssohn.
“This has never been mentioned, that you practice Judaism.” Paul hoped he didn’t sound hostile to the idea.
The doctor appeared to take no affront. “All your previous invitations have been for Sundays,” he replied.
“Have you always?”
“Always?”
“Kept the Sabbath?”
“Yes. Since childhood.” The doctor seemed confused. “Being Jewish.”
Paul wasn’t certain if something else was being implied here, about the Jewish background of the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy family.
“It’s become a habit, I’m afraid,” Dr. Werner said humorously, with no trace of either the defensive or the boastful. “I no longer live in my father’s house, but I still observe the Sabbath.”
“We meet next Saturday for music because of a family obligation on Sunday.” Paul was surprised to find himself giving an explanation. As host, he had no need to explain himself. “Come to us two Sundays hence, if you are free. And do bring your viola.”
“Thank you. I would be delighted.”
The notion came to Paul in a flash: as an observant Jew and dedicated musician, Dr. Werner might feel compelling reasons to safeguard Sara’s artifact. Paul had no obligation, legal or moral, to keep the manuscript within the family. No document listed it, and he was the only family member who was even aware of its existence.
Paul realized he was being impetuous, which heretofore he’d never permitted himself to be, dependable banker that he was. And yet as he considered the idea, he felt increasingly confident in the choice. He wished he could settle the matter by giving the manuscript to the doctor today. Alas, he needed to retrieve it from the safe in his office.
“In two weeks, Doctor, kindly arrive early, so that we may again speak privately.”
“Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, I must lay emphasis on a particular issue: if your symptoms change, if your pain becomes worse, please contact me.”
The doctor spoke with a sympathy that sounded genuine. Paul was touched.
“Regarding the pain—”
“I don’t imagine I’ll be needing another medical examination. Not so soon, that is.”
“But the pain—”
“I’ve been living with the pain for some time. That’s the reason I requested our consultation.”
Paul had hoped to garner a smile from the doctor for this admittedly weak witticism, but the man’s only response was increased concern.
“Truly, Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy—”
“I have something I want to give you, when next you visit. A gift, to thank you for your astute diagnosis.”
“That’s kind of you, but a gift would embarrass me. I can’t treat you for anything more than the pain. Only charlatans would recommend more treatment than that, subjecting the patient—you, in this case—to needless suffering.”
Paul would have been happy to have such a son as this. “Thank you for your consideration, which I appreciate.”
“I can’t save you. Therefore, please, no gifts are necessary.”
“This is a gift I must ask you to conceal. You may very well come to regard it as an affliction. So we’ll consider ourselves equal.”
Paul walked the good doctor down the curving staircase.